THE NE.W YORKER There was one dance so elegant and aristocratic in air, with such expreSSIons of courtliness between the man and his lady, that I thought it would have to be an eighteenth-century French court dance in origin, but my informant said it was definitely from Africa, and even named the tribe that had brought it. It is not surprising that, with all these cultural overlays, anthropologists have found the \\7" est Indies, particularly Trinidad, fertile territory. In recent years, they have been all over the place, poking into everything. "The fête took place one morning on the heights,/F or the approval of some anthropologist," begins a sonnet by Derek \\7" alcott, a young St. Lucian now living in Trini- dad, who is considered the finest poet in the region. Unwittingly, anthropol- ogists make their own mark on the cultures they study, and probably be- come part of folklore themselves. I haven't actually run into any anthro- pologists during my travels in the West Indies, but I have crossed theIr warm spoor in a couple of places. In one back-country village, I was shown a relIc left behind by one-a corncob pipe with an amber stem. EVIdentlv, an anthropologist had been at Mayaro, too. The old villager with whom I watched the dances related a piece of lore about betrothal ceremonies during our conversation. I thought he was telling me about some Mayaro custom, but It turned out that he was passing on something the visiting anthropolo- gist had told him about the natives of the T robriand Islands, off New Guinea "Curious, isn't it?" the old man said. Night fell with tropical abruptness, and the dancers dispersed. My friends and I took a last stroll along the beach before setting off back for Port of Spain. The moon had come up, three- quarters full and very bright. A bit of a breeze rustled in the palms, whose trunks arched seaward like drawn bows along the shoreline. Under the moon's hypnotic eye, the silvered sea lay calm now in its bay. It was lovely, without doubt, yet somehow haunted. What is it that is so sad about tropIcal beaches, especially at night? Despite the exhila- ration of the dances, I was keenly aware of thIs strain of sadness that night at Mayaro. I thought about some- thing that Derek Walcott had once told me-that for his poetic mask, his persona in the Yeatsian sense, he had adopted that of the castaway. It is apt, and reflects more than just his own predicament One feels that in a sense they are all castaways, the \\7" est Indi- ans, Including-for all their ebullience 225 )0 ""\ :'I 1. *: '\ '" ... , ..... '" "'} 1> ... ",, <It.". .I:'.11 ;:- "" , ..... *'" { The Abbot chose '( fK/'" Jc:;" t Ì\ Ô'\j,. : the finest scotch in the monastery, when the first scotch whisky was distilled in medieval times. A great whisky in this tradition, prized for generations in Scotland, is now available in America. t . . ED IN SCOI1.A\) " BBOT S :. :.l1CHOICE ... Make'l\bbot's Ch . " @ OICe yours! \vb} I -< :W_*,. __ òV!(.JS w ø<< FROM SCOTLAND. 868 PROOF. BLENDED SCOTCH WHlv llv . KOBRAND, N.Y .:.. . ':. ...:.... <1'''' :::;:; ::.: '.. -ø-. .:.:.. d. fIl ...-.0, ' j,: Él$on 1/ " mlin ) <,. I I Je ..(-:. .. .: .. .;:::;: . :::::. .:.: : :r;::' w .. status Mason & Hamlin. The important piano. Destined for the privileged few to whom a piano's tone is important Those who know that Mason & Hamlin has the exclusive tension resonator, the duplex scale. No other piano has features like these. The name alone is an endorsement of excellence. It speaks highly of the piano it identifies. And of its owner. > - . 1/ BROCHURE ON REQUEST Mason & Hamlin, East Rochester, N.Y. ÅDivision of Aeolian Corporation